Dredge hull



July 7, 1942. w. B. MACAULAY DREDGE HULL Filed Dec. 12, 1939 2Sheets-Sheet l INVENTOR W41. TE 2 B. MACHULAY BY M X ATTORN EY July 7,1942.

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W. B. MACAULAY DREDGE HULL Filed Dec. 12, 1939 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 I i g /55 INVENTOR v WALTER B. MHCAULHY BY M ATTORNEY Patented July 7, 1942DREDGE HULL Walter B. Macaulay,

Yuba Manufacturing Oakland, Calif., assignor to ompany, San Francisco,

Calif., a corporation of California Application December 12, 1939,Serial No. 308,835 1 Claim. (01. 114-26) My .invention is concernedparticularly with boat hulls and is designed primarily for use inconnection with dredges. A dredge hull normally is assembled in thefield from a plurality of parts which are more or less prefabricated ata factory and shipped to the field for erection. While some dredgefields are of such a character and are so located with respect to thefactory as to impose no structure or design limitations upon thefabrication of the hull, other fields are so remote and have suchspecial characteristics as to impose very severe limitations upon thedesign. Particularly in the case of Arctic and Antarctic fields is itnecessary not only to transport parts of the dredge by ship or railpartway to the site of operations, but also to complete the journey ofthe parts by travel where there are no roads and often over vastexpanses of snow and ice. It is therefore necessary to provide partwhich can be transported by rail or by boat and can be subsequentlytransported over snow and ice.

It is virtually necessary that a large part of the field erection takeplace at or near the terminus of the rail or water shipment which may bemany miles from the dredging site. In such localities, Alaska forinstance, labor is scarce and expensive and the season is short, so thata given job of field erection must be promptly completed, otherwise itmust wait until the following year for transportation to the dredgesite. transportation may be for a distance of twenty or twenty-fivemiles over snow and ice fields, hence the field-erected parts must beadaptable to this condition as well as to a minimum of field laborcosts. It is therefore an object of my invention to provide a dredgehull which can be fabricated in such a way as to make it capable oftransport by rail or boat and over ice fields.

Another consideration under many circumstances, particularly in veryremote fields, is to reduce as much as possible the amount of field worknecessary for assembling and also to simplify the kind or character offield Work so that relatively unskilled laborers can perform thenecessary final erection operations. It is therefore another object ofmy invention to provide a dredge hull which can readily be assembled byunskilled labor with the help of a minimum amount of skilled supervisionand labor.

The foregoing and other objects are attained in the embodiment of theinvention illustrated in the drawings, in which Fig. 1 is a form of adredge hull constructed in accordance with my invention;

This

Fig, 2 is a plan of a pontoon as included in the hull shown in Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a cross-section the plane of which is indicated by the line3-3 of Fig. 2;

Fig. 4 is a cross-section the plane of which is indicated by the line 44of Fig. 2; and

Fig. 5 is an enlarged cross-section, similar to Fig. 4, but showing indetail the abutting pontoon flanges welded together.

In its preferred form, the dredge hull comprises a plurality ofassembled pontoons, each pontoon including a pair of facing metal boxeshaving inturned marginal flanges which are placed in abutment and areheld temporarily by removable fastenings, following which they areperipherally welded together, both externally and internally, to providea water-tight enclosure. While the dredge hull of my invention is ofcourse susceptible of embodiment in a large number of different forms,it is illustrated herein as it has been embodied in one instance, forshipment to a distant field part of the journey to whichis over ice andsnow.

In this form of my invention there is provided a floating hull 6 whichis in one portion generally rectangular in plan and is in anotherportion tapered to converge in the general direction of a centralwell 1. While the particular contour of the hull is immaterial, the onedisclosed is representative and illustrates that the hull is made uppreferably of a plurality of individual pontoons 8. A single one of thepontoons is especially shown in plan in Fig. 2, and in therepresentative instance is itself rectangular in plan although, asdisclosed in Fig. 1, some of the pontoons are of irregular shapes. Thegeneral principle of construction of all of them is the same, however,so that the description of a rectangular pontoon is intended to coverany variation of such shape.

Each of the pontoons 8 is preferably fabricated of a pluralitya pair-ofmetal boxes 9 and II. The boxes 9 and H are substantially identical andare closed parallelepipedons except for adjacent sides. Each box may beof such a length, however, as to make it desirable to provide anintermediate joint, yet I prefer that each of the boxes meet in a jointI2 which is not exactly in the center of the length thereof but ratheris oifset so that the several joints [2, when the boxes 9 and II areplaced adjacent each other, are staggered or are out of line, therebydistributing the stresses.

Since each of the pontoons is relatively large, it is fabricated of aplurality of smaller structhat illustrated, is a pontoon substantially12 ft. high or deep, about 17 ft. wide, and approximate- .ly 70 ft.long. Each of the boxes 9 and H is .comprised of outside structuralplates I 3 and bottom plates is and end plates I5, as Well as 'topplates 16, which, at corresponding corners, :are joined to each otherthrough the intermediary of angles l7 and are internally braced by.structural shapes l8 and I9 joined by gusset plates 24. Thisconstruction affords a pair ofboxes which are open on their adjacentsides yet have their marginal edges in substantial .registry orabutment. 1

In accordance with my invention, I prefer- :ably provide each of theboxes 9 and H" with can inturned marginal flange. Thisflange 22- forms arectangular border or margin around the aide opening 23 and is comprisedof a plate 24 joined to the plates l8 and M, as well as to the endplates 85, by angles 27. Not only arethe flanges held in place,butlikewise the general rigidity of the structure is augmented bygussets 28 and29 joining the braces 19 to additional braces 31. N

All of the fabrication so far described is feasible of construction at acentral erecting factory and provides structures in the nature, ofboxeshaving open sides which are well capable of rail or boat transport.Furthermore, each of the boxes fabricated as so far described is asubstan.- tially-finishedarticle and, if turned with the side Itlowermost, for example,- is water-tight and is of a weightwhich issatisfactory for ordinary handling and transport. v

Since the two boxes 9 and H are substantially finished, they can beshipped to the field-for erection and, when receivedthere, can beassembled with the flanges 22 in immediate abutment, as shown in Fig. 4,and held in such-abutted .or registered position by means of removablefastenings 33, such as bolts and nuts, which are passed throughpreviously: provided vholesin. ap-

propriate locations. Access to the interior of the boxes 9 and H is hadthrough suitable man holes provided with closures, not shown, but inaccordance with the usual fashion of dredge hulls. When the two boxes 9and II are held in position by the fastenings 33, the adjacent edges ofthe flanges 22 are externally secured together by a peripheral weld 34which extends entirely around the outside meeting edges of the flangesor the meeting edges of the boxes 9 and II, to provide a continuousclosure and fastening therefor. Similarly, and to supplement the weld34, the internal edges of the flanges are provided with a peripheralweld 36 extending entirely around the interior of the marginal flanges,so that-bcth-boxes 9 and H are permanently related togetherintheposition shown in Fig. 4, and a water-tight connection is provided sothat the boxes together constitute a pontoon 8. The fastenings 33 can beleft in position if desired, for any additional strength thatmay benecessary, or can be removed if that-seems to be desirable. Theperipheral weldingiswcf a nature which can readily and simplybefabricated in the field and completes the assembly of the units forfinal erection as shown in Fig. 1.,

I claim:v I

A dredge hull comprising a pontoon including a pair of generally closedboxes having open abutting sides, each of. said boxes being fabricatedof a plurality of spacedrectangular frames made of structural shapesspacedat the, corners of the rectangular frames, gussets secured to thestructural shapes and spanning, the spacesbetween the structural shapesat the corners,,plates secured to said spaced rectangular frames, on allsides butone, means for securing said plates together in water tightrelationship,. platesconstituting inturned flanges disposed on saidabut.- ting sides surrounding the openings therein. and secured to saidframes,- and welds extending around the adjacent edges of saidflangeplates to constitute a water tight connection between said pair ofboxes. Ii

WALTER B. MACAULAY.

